DietPi server on NUC - update issue [Fixed in DietPi 7.8]

Hi there,

I currently have Roon server on a NUC with a DietPi install. I know I could get ROCK instead but that’s not exactly what I need/want.
Server works great however, there’s a persistent issue when update happens as it seems it’s wiping out the server and basically need a restore after the update to get back library, settings etc.
That issue has already been reported on Dietpi forum here and the DietPi folks are saying they’re actually following every steps as described in Roon installation and that this issue should be raised here.

Is this anything you could help with?

many thanks,
Julien

Dietpi on an intel nuc?

Apparently so…

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yes works very well appart from this issue.

Have tried to get @Dan_Knight to respond to this, but to no avail.
Have raised this issue on this fora also:

Best solution is to uninstall the DietPi-package and install Roon Server manually by following standard procedures outlined in the Roon install guides.

It has something to do with the DietPi setup selecting a bad location for the database, which gets erased upon every update.

DietPi x86, a very light distro with great management tools, but there are caveats, as you can see.

Lovely - I’ll give it a go there. Thank you v much. As you said that’s one of the caveat of using this distro but I prefer this to a full fledged Linux distro as I find the maintenance of DietPi so easy.

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Live and learn.
I remember it when the pi bit matched it’s platform.

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Me too, I had to read their link in the post to clarify myself.
It sounds odd but sort of works it seems.

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It’s not so strange really, just another Linux based distro, compiled for PC (x86) as well as the slightly less powerful ARM processors of the Pi’s, Tinkerboards and what-have ya! :slight_smile:

I get that but when I started pi operating systems only operated on their namesakes hence expecting anything ending in pi, to be for a :pie:. :grinning:

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I had a look at the dietpi-software install script and what happens in DietPi is that the ROON_DATAROOT is set to the installation directory.

@support, is having the database in the installation directory supported or is this why the database gets wiped during a Roon update?

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How did you transfer DietPi to the boot drive on the NUC? IIRC, unless you do a lot of extra work, DietPi installs on x86 hardware are ephemeral.

Arch Linux offers similar minimalism, and the effort to set up the boot drive is also not trivial, but that end result will be closer to what you want, I think.

I have an Arch Linux Core. It’s on very underspec’ed hardware, but it is reliable. :slight_smile:

I actually had an arch Linux core but the effort to put it up again after I had a hard disk failure really put me off doing it a 2nd time. Also I was looking at a solution that’s easier to update as well as automated scripts to backup which Dietpi is fantastic at.

With respect to your first question, Dietpi has images for nuc and it’s something they support.
Just need to find a way to get the update clean for roon but it looks like all I have to do is install as if it was a regular Linux box instead of using the Dietpi installer.

Hey guys, I’m sorry that this issue has been open for such a long time. If you face an issue with DietPi, please @MichaIng mention me here now, I’ve enabled email notifications.

Thanks for figuring out that the data directory within the core directory is the reason for this issue. We’ll fix this with next DietPi release by splitting both, a PR has been opened (which triggered my activity here):

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Welcome to the Roon Community @MichaIng.

I’m sure your presence here will be helpful as I’m always impressed by your quick responses on GitHub.

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Hey guys, a PR is now up to fix it, and I also want to fix it for existing installations. Current solution is to simply reinstall it on next DietPi update, which will install it to a new directory /opt/roonserver and then remove the related files from the previous combined install + data/config/logs dir /mnt/dietpi_userdata/roonserver, while leaving actual data/configs/logs in place. But this means that there are no migrations done to the database, in case required, like the internal updater may do. So the question is whether a new Roon Server version will do this in case automatically, or if this may fail with an old database or old settings?

Another solution would be to move files from /mnt/dietpi_userdata/roonserver to /opt/roonserver to keep the Roon Server version untouched. I’d be happy for suggestions: XXXX

EDIT: Trying to add link to GitHub triggers a spam flag for all my posts? Can someone revert this, please? :thinking:

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Thank you @MichaIng , highly appreciated!

I would not hesitate to do the old “backup db, uninstall server, reinstall new server package, restore db from backup”-dance in this scenario! :smiley:

Since the database is not touched at all, not even moved, a backup is probably not required. Although when there is a disk that a new Roon Server can corrupt an old database, if not migration steps are done, then yes. But in this case I would go the way to skip updating the Roon Server and only move its core files to the new location, adjust the systemd server and go.

Thanks for unflagging my posts to whoever did :slightly_smiling_face:. Probably I need to wait for a higher trust level before posting any link.

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DietPi 7.8 has been released, this release has a fix for the Roon server update issue.

During the DietPi update the Roon server is separated from the database to prevent database corruption during the next Roon server update.

@MichaIng, thanks for being critical on my initial “destructive database split” proposal. The final result we could come up with gives a much better user experience!


BTW. For those that run Roon server on DietPi, know that it is easy to run Roon extensions as well by just installing the Extension Manager: dietpi-software install 86 :slight_smile:

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